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Sorcery
The Sorcery Realm is one of the six Magical Realms in Master of Magic. Sorcery is themed around creating illusions and manipulating ephemeral features of the environment, such as air, magicka, and the passage of time. Meant for waging a cold war against other Wizards and their forces, Sorcery spells focus on opportunistic shutdown and defense. The mark of the Realm is a that appears on the bindings of Sorcery Spellbooks in-game, and denotes Sorcery spells, effects, and "Spellbook Ranks" on this wiki. __TOC__ Description Sorcery appears to be a realm of elemental magic, like Nature and Chaos, that is connected in some way to the natural history of Arcanus and Myrror. There may be a "Sorcery Realm," a cosmic source of power for the Sorcery Nodes dotting the landscape, but the in-game help is more explicit about the existence of a "Realm of Air": the home plane of various aerial creatures which a practitioner may bind into service; and the basis of many spell effects from this school. Like the Arcane, Sorcery also governs some unknown, ethereal dimension or context, from which sorcerers channel power to produce exotic effects, such as illusions and warps in space, time, and perceptions. The manual's so-called "meta-magic" arts feature prominently in Sorcery as well: a line of research into sustained magical barriers and counterspells, bigger and better than plain old Arcane Dispel effects. Sorcery does not seem to inspire the game's races towards an ideology around the magic - very much unlike the realms of Life, Death, Chaos, and Nature. A truly academic realm, it only attracts a few wizard and hero-practitioners, perhaps being accounted too strange a discipline for ordinary mortals to apply in civil and military work. ;Familiar :A wizard with mainly Sorcery spellbooks will take a Scarab as a familiar, maybe as a comment on the relationship between the magic-wielder and the heavens. The ancient Egyptians considered the Scarab beetle's behaviour, endlessly rolling compacted dung around, a microcosm of the operation of celestial bodies by the gods. Acquisition The player may pick up to Sorcery ranks when creating a new game. Additional Spellbooks may appear from time to time in Treasure from Encounter Zones. Sorcery is unique among the five "colored" Realms in that it is not directly opposed to any of the others. Selecting just one Sorcery book or two will unlock random Sorcery spells for research and fulfill requirements for certain Wizard abilities, while leaving room to specialize in something else. For each Spellbook rank taken above the first, one Common Sorcery spell may be selected to be Known from the start. The most general-purpose spells on the Common tier, such as , , and , are all popular initial picks. Picking more books allows more spells to be Known at the beginning, eventual access to the Realm's rarest spells, and improved research and casting ability in Sorcery. In addition to widening spell knowledge, the middle ranks unlock strong enchantments for use in Item Crafting. Sorcery is a favorable school of focus for boosting Heroes and "homemade" equipment in this manner. Sorcery is rather slow until the Wizard has a large selection of spells for use in various circumstances, but it possesses some of the most powerful spells in the game at the higher levels. It has a few, very pointed, Summoning Spells and Unit Enchantments, and instead focuses on presenting a wide variety of Instant Spells and Combat Instants - but again has some of the best Very Rare Spells in each category. Realm Details Sorcery has 10 spells per degree of Spell Rarity, totaling 40 spells with a cumulative research cost of . Each member holds a discrete cost increment along the spectrum between ( ) and ( ). List of Sorcery Spells General Pros and Cons Sorcery is a strategic toolbox. Most of the strongest Wizard builds — such as they are regarded by the Master of Magic player base — will either start the game with, or leave room for, some Sorcery Spellbooks, to get access to favored spells and effects. Pros: * Great for mobility ( , , , , ); * Superb for control (dispelling enemy spells / preventing enemy spells / preventing own spells from being dispelled); * Grants unique unit abilities ( , , , ) that can be used on items, too; * Versatile effects - all Common Spells have some usage, with an expanding repertoire covering more and more situations; * Good combat summons ( , , ); * The . Cons: * Terrible against creatures ( Illusions Immunity negates , , and ; and prevents armor penetration by and ) — creatures are seen in Encounter Zones very frequently; * No spells for improving the economy; * No spells for improving unit stats; * Paucity of overland Summoning Spells, which can backfire with a low number of books; * Fantastic Units are "glass cannons," hitting hard, but low on hitpoint scores themselves; * The , again - usually have to defeat these to find extra Sorcery Spellbooks. Unit Enchantments The Sorcery Realm's positive Unit Enchantments bestow unusual defenses to friendly target units. The Common members of the group, and , are just for contingencies: they might save a unit against Unit Curses or standard attacks (respectively), or the occasion simply might not arise. Further along though, , , , , and are essential research goals - expensive, game-changing spells meant for valuable units. Wind Walking and Flight greatly improve overland movement for armies and increase liberties in battle. Magic Immunity and Invisibility shield the unit from many kinds of threats. An extra layer of defense, the Uncommon can help these spells resist the Dispelling attempts of rival Wizards and Heroes. Fantastic Units The Sorcery Realm has eight native Fantastic Unit types. Its Summoning Spell repertoire emphasizes Combat Summoning. The combat summons are , , and ; respectively Common, Uncommon, and Rare entries. They deal damage and draw the enemy's attention away from other units on the field. They can provide pinch-defense in a remote or poorly-defended City, lessening the need for big garrisons across the map. The , , and , respectively Common, Rare, and Very Rare, are sturdier and more expensive creatures available through overland summoning. More expensive still is the , one of the three elemental dragons at the top of the Fantastic Unit hierarchy. Sorcery's oddball summon is the Common spell. It's essentially a huge Transport that can be conjured overland on any visible water tile. Item Crafting Sorcery ranks allow the following spell-like effects to be selected when crafting Magical Items. They are unlocked whenever the player has the required number of Sorcery books on the shelf; no research is necessary, save for the and spells. The following Sorcery combat spells can be imbued, as reusable charges, into a new magic Wand or Staff, once they have been researched. See the article on Spell Charges for more information. Enemy Sorcerers Usually there is no need to wipe out a computer player solely on the basis of them wielding Sorcery. Any rivals with shared spellbooks can also become valuable spell trading partners. If someone begins casting , or , however, they probably need to be banished right away in an all-out assault. Wizards with lots of Sorcery spells at their disposal can cause expensive problems on the battle screen. They prioritize and "True" disenchantment; they may be able to attack with illusionary, invisible, or otherwise tweaked units; or find some other way to be annoying. All computer players spend as much spell skill as they can, in every battle. The best way to deal with a Sorcery Wizard is either to bring overwhelming secular force, employ units with Illusions Immunity, or force them to fight a lot of pointless battles. Traits When the world is generated, the computer-controlled Wizards each make a lottery-ball style roll for Personality and Objective. These traits modify the Wizard's behavior, giving them some hard-to-resist compulsions and adding flavor. If the Wizard's shelf is stocked primarily with Sorcery books, then this Realm will determine how these lottery-ball rolls are weighted. Sorcery tends the Wizard towards a Personality of "Aggressive" and an Objective of "Theurgist" (but no guarantees). In cases where Spellbook ranks are tied, and the game needs to decide which Realm conveys influence, precedence descends in this order: : For instance, Kali's default Artificer build is a tie between two colors, but the game will weight her personality and objective according to her Sorcery ranks, not . The table below shows the chances that each character trait has of appearing on a Sorcery Wizard, before accounting for the influence of Retorts: ;Aggressive :On the diplomatic scale of 100 to -100, an "Aggressive" Wizard has a -10 Core Reaction to all of the other Wizards, including the human player. All diplomatic relations gravitate towards the Core Reaction values at the rate of one point per turn; therefore, an Aggressive Wizard will become hostile unless appeased occasionally. This type of Wizard also has double the chance of building Settlers, apparently cumulative with the "Expansionist" trait. ;Theurgist :Wizards with this objective focus on their . They have an increased probability of constructing Town Buildings lying along the religious and academic development paths, and they have an increased probability of targeting a Node or -producing City for conquest overland. Diplomacy Modifiers Sorcery Spellbooks on a Wizard's shelf provoke one Core Reaction adjustment: Example: Raven and Jafar each adjust their Core Reaction to the other by +12 ( held in common). Leader personalities, Retorts, and other Spellbooks will cause further adjustments. Blue Encounter Zones Wild creatures of the Sorcery Realm are only found in and ancient Towers. are more common (but no less powerful or well-guarded) than and , especially on the Plane of Myrror. The Official Strategy Guide suggests that nearby Ocean tiles will slightly bias a Node towards Sorcery, however, this information is outdated and no longer true from patch v1.1 onwards. Instead, have a much higher initial chance of being created than the other two, but are then reduced should there be too many on one of the Planes (see Node Generation for more details). Every Encounter Zone makes a procedural selection of guardians through what is essentially a budget, when it can afford guardians. Typically there will be one or more high-end units of the lair's Realm (this is the creature sighted by scouts who peek into the lair), attended by a lesser unit type. A will harbor Sorcery creatures without fail. The Tower can have anything; the world generator always places six towers, so about two-thirds of the time, a map is going to have at least one Tower populated with Sorcery units. Category:Sorcery Category:Magical Realms